Has Biden Made the Right Choice in Afghanistan?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I'd tend to agree with that, I don't think this even amounts to as much as Benghazi (since it doesn't have the loss of U.S. life Benghazi did.) And Benghazi was mostly a thing to cry about by people who were never voting Democrat anyway, so it had minimal political impact. It was political entertainment for the right, not an actual mover of votes.

Now I can see someone saying Biden didn't "warn" them that he was moving all of the American civilians out, because that decision was not made until this month, and had to be made rapidly due to the extremely rapid collapse of the Afghan national government. Biden coudn't have warned NATO he was evacuating our Embassy back in June when it was not our plan to evacuate our Embassy at ALL back then. It was expected it would continue to operate after things were left in the Ghani government's hands.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I'm seeing news reports State's count of Americans still in country is 1500, 500 of which they are in contact with and who want to get out, 1000 of which appear to either be not responding to State or not wanting out. At this point the 1000 I'm kinda fine with whatever, they're making a choice to not be communicating.

[Jacob]

At this point the 1000 I'm kinda fine with whatever, they're making a choice to not be communicating.

Unless they're being prevented from communicating, of course, as may be the case for some.

[The Minsky Moment]

Biden announced the August 31st deadline publicly months ago.

In his April speech he said September 11.  Then he moved that up to August 31 in June.  But by that time, Bagram had already been evacuated without advance warning.

[The Minsky Moment]

Since the war was lost a long time ago and everyone knew it was, it seems unlikely to me that details regarding the withdrawal itself will have a long-term political impact. Except in the UK, depending on how many animals get brought out.

The UK is where the impact is most likely to be felt, given the Tory "strategy" of moving away from security collaboration with the feckless Europeans post-Brexit and putting all the eggs in cooperation with the rock-solid, reliable Americans.

[Sheilbh]

Sorry I wasn't clear because I think you're all talking about something different - I don't necessarily mean the policy decision, from my memory of the story it was operational (which is why the story's coming from the military and the MoD).

Because they weren't in the room with the US and Taliban in the last month - which is fine - military commanders were not aware of the types of contingency plans the US was drawing up. Especially as if the US kept it's embassy in place most of the rest of NATO would follow. They weren't informed of what was going on, or how the US intended to withdraw or the pace of withdrawal - all of those have direct impacts on all of the US's allies wtihdrawal plans.

It also explains why for the first few days after the US began its withdrawal NATO allies appeared to be so surprised and flat-footed. They didn't know.

[Malthus]

I disagree with the last part: the article itself claims that the result of this alleged shambles will be that "... America's power to deter its enemies and to reassure its friends has diminished. Its intelligence was flawed, its planning rigid, its leaders capricious and its concern for its allies minimal".

If true, these assertions ought to be of concern to Americans who care nothing for the Great Game or for the well being of Afghans. It ought to be of concern to Americans who care about American self interest.

The Economist leader is premised that there was some (unknown even to the author of the piece) method of implementation of the withdrawal that could handled in a manner to America's advantage and would enhance or maintain its "power to deter its enemies and to reassure its friends."   I don't agree.  I also think that the Economist's view of a world where normally intelligence is perfectly unflawed, planning is utterly non-rigid, leaders are never, ever capricious, and concern for allies is paramount is childish and naïve.

There was no good path for the US out of Afghanistan after its government decided to replace the Taliban with a fictional national government.  There certainly wasn't a way for Biden's administration to oversee an ANG victory over the Taliban.  At best, the US could have continued the slaughter indefinitely.

That certainly would be childish and naive, if that was what was being claimed.

Seems a false dichotomy to me. Stating that an action was implemented badly is not the same thing as demanding perfection.

But the argument isn't that the Biden administration was irresponsible in anything, just that "its intelligence was flawed" (like all intelligence), "its planning rigid" (like all planning), "its leaders capricious" (like all leaders) and "its concern for its allies minimal" (an emo argument that presumes the writer actually knows the real concerns of the Biden Administration leadership).  These are dumb arguments, in the absence of a proposed strategy that lacks some or all of those "flaws."

Those statements are conclusions that follow from the description of events in the rest of the article. They are not made in the air based on nothing.

For example, take the assertion that the intelligence was flawed. This is based on the administration apparently not having a clue that the Afghan government it spent years supporting would collapse so rapidly. The Economist wrote that it, too, did not predict such a rapid collapse - but then, it isn't the government in charge of overseeing the whole process.

You can argue that all intelligence is flawed, and that is surely true. But some flaws are more glaring than others. Not knowing that the Afghan government and military was so completely worthless, and that the Taliban would take over so very easily, must rank as a pretty significant "flaw".

[Malthus]

Also they seem like criticisms of the last 20 years rather than the withdrawal alone.

In the leader, they are expressly criticisms of the withdrawal process. Not of the last 20 years.

[Sheilbh]

The UK is where the impact is most likely to be felt, given the Tory "strategy" of moving away from security collaboration with the feckless Europeans post-Brexit and putting all the eggs in cooperation with the rock-solid, reliable Americans.

Not for this thread - but that's just not true.

[Sheilbh]

Also they seem like criticisms of the last 20 years rather than the withdrawal alone.

In the leader, they are expressly criticisms of the withdrawal process. Not of the last 20 years.

Yeah but my point is they build on twenty years of the same failure. So the flawed intelligence around the brittleness of Ghani's is a fair criticism - my suspicion is it's a consequence of a previous twenty years of intelligence failures. That might, for example, explain why the Taliban resurgence was a surprise etc. So I don't understand how you can separate them (and I think they are fair criticisms) to apply to the withdrawal only, and unless you have a solution for those issues don't you just end up with the same issues 20 years down the line?

[Malthus]

Also they seem like criticisms of the last 20 years rather than the withdrawal alone.

In the leader, they are expressly criticisms of the withdrawal process. Not of the last 20 years.

Yeah but my point is they build on twenty years of the same failure. So the flawed intelligence around the brittleness of Ghani's is a fair criticism - my suspicion is it's a consequence of a previous twenty years of intelligence failures. That might, for example, explain why the Taliban resurgence was a surprise etc. So I don't understand how you can separate them (and I think they are fair criticisms) to apply to the withdrawal only, and unless you have a solution for those issues don't you just end up with the same issues 20 years down the line?

I don't understand this point (or maybe don't agree with it).

Assuming one is now President and has inherited a particular situation from one's predecessors. That situation may be screwed up. You have decisions to make as to what to do about that situation. Your decisions will be based on your understanding of that situation at the time you make the decision, correct? You, or your advisors, will be expected to understand just how screwed up the situation is.

You can't be faulted for the situation being screwed up, that was something your predecessors did.

However, it seems perfectly just for you to be faulted for *not knowing how screwed up the situation actually is*, and taking action based on that misunderstanding. That's the failure being alleged here.

Biden's predecessors are to blame for getting America into Afghanistan and staying there. If Biden did not correctly understand how brittle the Afghan government was, that was his fault, and his alone (as the "buck" of his advisors stops with him). It may be explicable that his advisors continued along with the same misunderstandings as previously, but ultimately he has to wear it - that is, in effect, part of his job.

[Sheilbh]

So I think there's two sides - one is the media criticism angle.

The Economist has backed the mission in Afghanistan for 20 years, they admit they have been blind-sided by what has happened. My point is that what has happened is as a result of that legacy of policy failures and the leader should include some acknowledgement and some reflection, perhaps, on how it went so wrong and what, over the years the Economist got wrong. Rather than an "o brave new world" attitude to these issues which are noted but the only proposed policy change was to delay withdrawal or to stay - again without explanation of how, having done that, the US would improve its flawed intelligence, rigid strategy etc. Especially as Ghani's already fled.

On Biden - I think he's responsible for this withdrawal as a policy decision but I don't think he's to blame for the flawed intelligence or rigid strategy or whatever else. As I say this all - including the assessment of the Afghan government - builds on twenty years of failure, of a blind eye being turned to increasingly corrupt local partners, of a huge intelligence failure. And I don't think leaders can be blamed for things that were entirely outside the mainstream on a subject - I think there's some suggestions of buck passing among intelligence agencies now. I know it is obvious now but I thnk of the Afghan expert on Twitter who'd made their own predictions basically people should own those predictions because they were uniformally wrong. I think you can blame a leader if they're encouraging or enabling groupthing - which I don't know if Biden has. But in general I don't think it's fair to expect a leader to have some insight that is both more accurate and entirely different from the wider foreign policy establishment and, from what I understand, the intelligence agencies or defence. We don't generally elect savants.

Ironically I think the only recent President who probably did was was Trump. I often think about that South Carolina debate (where I think he won the nomination) by saying the unsayable as a Republican candidate - Bush didn't keep us safe, 9/11 happened under him, Iraq was a disaster. But that's not Biden - he is, probably, the most foreign policy establishment seeped President since Bush 41.

[viper37]

Not knowing that the Afghan government and military was so completely worthless, and that the Taliban would take over so very easily, must rank as a pretty significant "flaw".

That was a known fact. Different Defense memos clearly establish that Afhgan security force are mostly unreliable and corruption is endemic.  Various generals warned Biden that the Afghan army wasn't ready to hold the country alone, but Biden wanted out anyway since they couldn't tell him what he wanted to hear: a precise date on when they'd be ready.

Now, here's a text by a 3* Afghan general about his sense of betrayal by the US:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/opinion/afghanistan-taliban-army.html

Sami Sadat

General Sadat is a commander in the Afghan National Army.

For the past three and a half months, I fought day and night, nonstop, in southern Afghanistan's Helmand Province against an escalating and bloody Taliban offensive. Coming under frequent attack, we held the Taliban back and inflicted heavy casualties. Then I was called to Kabul to command Afghanistan's special forces. But the Taliban already were entering the city; it was too late.

I am exhausted. I am frustrated. And I am angry.

President Biden said last week that "American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves."

It's true that the Afghan Army lost its will to fight. But that's because of the growing sense of abandonment by our American partners and the disrespect and disloyalty reflected in Mr. Biden's tone and words over the past few months. The Afghan Army is not without blame. It had its problems — cronyism, bureaucracy — but we ultimately stopped fighting because our partners already had.

It pains me to see Mr. Biden and Western officials are blaming the Afghan Army for collapsing without mentioning the underlying reasons that happened. Political divisions in Kabul and Washington strangled the army and limited our ability to do our jobs. Losing combat logistical support that the United States had provided for years crippled us, as did a lack of clear guidance from U.S. and Afghan leadership.

I am a three-star general in the Afghan Army. For 11 months, as commander of 215 Maiwand Corps, I led 15,000 men in combat operations against the Taliban in southwestern Afghanistan. I've lost hundreds of officers and soldiers. That's why, as exhausted and frustrated as I am, I wanted to offer a practical perspective and defend the honor of the Afghan Army. I'm not here to absolve the Afghan Army of mistakes. But the fact is, many of us fought valiantly and honorably, only to be let down by American and Afghan leadership.

Two weeks ago, while battling to hold the southern city of Lashkar Gah from the Taliban, President Ashraf Ghani named me commander of Afghanistan's special forces, the country's most elite fighters. I reluctantly left my troops and arrived in Kabul on Aug. 15, ready to fight — unaware how bad the situation already was. Then Mr. Ghani handed me the added task of ensuring the security of Kabul. But I never even had a chance: The Taliban were closing in, and Mr. Ghani fled the country.

There is an enormous sense of betrayal here. Mr. Ghani's hasty escape ended efforts to negotiate an interim agreement for a transition period with the Taliban that would have enabled us to hold the city and help manage evacuations. Instead, chaos ensued — resulting in the desperate scenes witnessed at the Kabul airport.

It was in response to those scenes that Mr. Biden said on Aug. 16 that the Afghan forces collapsed, "sometimes without trying to fight." But we fought, bravely, until the end. We lost 66,000 troops over the past 20 years; that's one-fifth of our estimated fighting force.

So why did the Afghan military collapse? The answer is threefold.

First, former President Donald Trump's February 2020 peace deal with the Taliban in Doha doomed us. It put an expiration date on American interest in the region. Second, we lost contractor logistics and maintenance support critical to our combat operations. Third, the corruption endemic in Mr. Ghani's government that flowed to senior military leadership and long crippled our forces on the ground irreparably hobbled us.

The Trump-Taliban agreement shaped the circumstances for the current situation by essentially curtailing offensive combat operations for U.S. and allied troops. The U.S. air-support rules of engagement for Afghan security forces effectively changed overnight, and the Taliban were emboldened. They could sense victory and knew it was just a matter of waiting out the Americans. Before that deal, the Taliban had not won any significant battles against the Afghan Army. After the agreement? We were losing dozens of soldiers a day.

Still, we kept fighting. But then Mr. Biden confirmed in April he would stick to Mr. Trump's plan and set the terms for the U.S. drawdown. That was when everything started to go downhill.

The Afghan forces were trained by the Americans using the U.S. military model based on highly technical special reconnaissance units, helicopters and airstrikes. We lost our superiority to the Taliban when our air support dried up and our ammunition ran out.

Contractors maintained our bombers and our attack and transport aircraft throughout the war. By July, most of the 17,000 support contractors had left. A technical issue now meant that aircraft — a Black Hawk helicopter, a C-130 transport, a surveillance drone — would be grounded.

The contractors also took proprietary software and weapons systems with them. They physically removed our helicopter missile-defense system. Access to the software that we relied on to track our vehicles, weapons and personnel also disappeared. Real-time intelligence on targets went out the window, too.

The Taliban fought with snipers and improvised explosive devices while we lost aerial and laser-guided weapon capacity. And since we could not resupply bases without helicopter support, soldiers often lacked the necessary tools to fight. The Taliban overran many bases; in other places, entire units surrendered.

Mr. Biden's full and accelerated withdrawal only exacerbated the situation. It ignored conditions on the ground. The Taliban had a firm end date from the Americans and feared no military reprisal for anything they did in the interim, sensing the lack of U.S. will.

And so the Taliban kept ramping up. My soldiers and I endured up to seven Taliban car bombings daily throughout July and the first week of August in Helmand Province. Still, we stood our ground.

I cannot ignore the third factor, though, because there was only so much the Americans could do when it came to the well-documented corruption that rotted our government and military. That really is our national tragedy. So many of our leaders — including in the military — were installed for their personal ties, not for their credentials. These appointments had a devastating impact on the national army because leaders lacked the military experience to be effective or inspire the confidence and trust of the men being asked to risk their lives. Disruptions to food rations and fuel supplies — a result of skimming and corrupt contract allocations — destroyed the morale of my troops.

The final days of fighting were surreal. We engaged in intense firefights on the ground against the Taliban as U.S. fighter jets circled overhead, effectively spectators. Our sense of abandonment and betrayal was equaled only by the frustration U.S. pilots felt and relayed to us — being forced to witness the ground war, apparently unable to help us. Overwhelmed by Taliban fire, my soldiers would hear the planes and ask why they were not providing air support. Morale was devastated. Across Afghanistan, soldiers stopped fighting. We held Lashkar Gah in fierce battles, but as the rest of the country fell, we lacked the support to continue fighting and retreated to base. My corps, which had carried on even after I was called away to Kabul, was one of the last to give up its arms — only after the capital fell.

We were betrayed by politics and presidents.

This was not an Afghan war only; it was an international war, with many militaries involved. It would have been impossible for one army alone, ours, to take up the job and fight. This was a military defeat, but it emanated from political failure.

Lt. Gen. Sami Sadat commanded the Afghan National Army's 215 Maiwand Corps in southwestern Afghanistan. Before that, he served as a senior director in Afghanistan's national intelligence agency. He is a graduate of the Defense Academy of the U.K. and holds a master's degree from King's College London.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't think Biden had any doubts about the worthlessness of the Afghan Army, just based on things he was reported to have been saying in meetings w/senior defense and intelligence officers back in the 2010s under Obama. I do think he genuinely thought they would hold out no less than three months and possibly more than a year, everything we've seen to hit press has suggested that was the range of estimates coming in from official intelligence, defense and State sources. FWIW there was a dissent cable sent in from something like 25 State officials saying they believed Afghanistan would collapse rapidly, however even their estimate wasn't as grim as the 11 or so days it actually took. And being a dissent cable means it was not a majority opinion, and we aren't sure Biden saw it--we do know that SecState Blinken did, though.

There's different degrees of worthlessness.

Like believing an Army is deeply corrupt and likely to slowly lose guys to desertion and steadily lose ground in bitter fighting is a lot different from believing literally 150,000+ guys were going to surrender all the major cities of the country, including the capital, with almost no shots being fired and with high level agreements between provincial level commanders and political leaders to accept money in exchange for said surrenders.

[grumbler]

With perfect hindsight there is no question that Biden blundered.  Clearly the plan was not withdraw all troops and then reinsert 5000.

So then the question is how realistic was the contingency that the Afghan govt would collapse more quickly than expected and how much planning was done in the event of that contingency. As to the former, it is very hard to see ex ante how a quick collapse would not have been considered as a plausible outcome, even if not the probable one.  Thus, a failure to have a contingency plan for that event would be a serious mistake.  And I have seen no evidence of such contingency planning and much evidence that there wasn't - namely the confused improvised nature of the initial US response and comments from sources inside the administration expressing surprise and shock and playing the blame game.

As for the impact on allies, what matters is not what the Biden administration intended or perceived but the perception of  the affected allies.  And it is clear that key American allies are unhappy and believe that the US has treated them shabbily.  You can argue with that all you want but it doesn't change the reality of those beliefs or the consequences that may follow.

I think that it's a fair cop that the US military/intelligence/diplomatic planning communities should have considered that there would be no Afghan National Government ten minutes after the US left Bagram AB.  I'm not sure how they could have confirmed that scenario without the withdrawal of troops, in which case the only option would be re-insertment, which is exactly what happened.

US allies are always unhappy and bitching about "being treated shabbily," starting with France and the Netherlands in the American Revolution.  But that's fair, because the US is always unhappy and bitching about "being treated shabbily" by those same allies, starting with France and the Netherlands in the American Revolution.